The News-Sellers Get Traction

The sell-the-news crowd is extremely anxious to hit this market, and that probably caused a little bit of squeeze in the early going. They are now regrouping, and with the dollar ticking up, they are gaining some traction. The key level is the opening low, and if and when that is breached, we should see selling pressure pick up quickly.

So far, breadth is fair, with about 2,850 gainers to 2,000 decliners. Precious metals are being hit on the dollar strength while just drugs and oil have some minor green. There are no major positive themes, but Apple (AAPL), Google (GOOG) and some of the big caps are helping the indices so far.

While I don't see much that is set up well on the long side, I don't think the bears are going to have an easy time digging their claws into this market. We still have good support, and I'm definitely not seeing any rush for the exits. If we can stay in the green for a few more hours, the likelihood of a late-day squeeze expands greatly.

I'm not that heavily long, but I've been a net seller this morning and am digging deep for some new inventory. One name I'm watching is a recent IPO, EPAM Systems (EPAM), which I mentioned a couple weeks ago. It is seeing a little better volume and is showing some signs of accumulation as initial analyst recommendations are due out in the next week or two.